I wouldn't think that Facebook would be as much of a threat to google as other websites could be. In the social networking arena Linkedin would be a threat if it was getting more traffic, but I just don't see Facebook being one. The beauty of Google is that based on searches you can target marketing. There was an article in the Economist recently that talked about the value of a pay per click add on Facebook compared to Google. It isn't even close. How do you target your marketing on Facebook? Based on region? A site like Linkedin you can target profession and region. Google you can target key words in searches.

Facebook needs to find a way to capitalize on advertising, then they can use the traffic to a greater advantage. Right now the value isn't there and some companies worry about having their name pop up next to the unknown and somewhat unrestricted content on Facebook.

Huge landmark for Facebook though.

Excellent points. It will be interesting to see how Facebook positions itself from here on out. There is a tremendous power in the "community". But like you mentioned its finding a way to profit from that, which makes the difference.

Just sat through an interesting presentation on social media which included how Facebook now uses target marketing based on people's profile information and is becoming more relevant on a pay-per-click advertising model. Very interesting, Google might be in a little bit more trouble than I originally thought.

Just ran across this article as well from a few days ago in the wall street journal.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703…